Real life doesn’t happen nicely and neatly. It’s one of the differences between reality and fiction – “Reality doesn’t have to make sense,” as Tom Clancy once said.
Therefore it shouldn’t surprise us that the events in acts happen to some degree haphazardly. The narrative in chapter 5 is an example – the things that happen don’t tie together, and perhaps nor should they. If Luke is writing down what happened and when, then sometimes stuff will happen out of order.
Verses 1 to 11 tell us the cautionary story of Annanias and Sapphira. I have always had difficulty with this story because of the vengeful nature of God shown here; but then again, I accept that their crime was quite serious, as well as inexplicable – what possible motive could they have had to lie about the price of their field? Why not tell the truth? Surely it would have made perfect sense to bring a portion to the disciples and then live off the rest, right?
Actually, it’s not that easy. You can see the social pressure on the couple, and perhaps an inkling of the pressure these two people felt, if you read what was happening in the previous chapter (remembering that the chapter division came long after the writing of the book) – people were selling their possessions and living in community, with all property in common.
It wasn’t that these two wanted to look good, not exactly. The environment that they were in was something special, and they wanted to be a part of what was going on – but it went against the ethic of owning property of their own.
Note that although the social pressure was against it, there was absolutely no problem with them owning the money, however. So whilst you can easily understand their lies, their lies were still lies. And as Peter said, they “have not lied to themselves but to God.”
God is unlikely to be fooled, which is why you get what we have here.
Then we move into verses 12 – 16. Every chapter you find at least one little passage like this, chronicling what the baby church was doing. This passage gives you some idea as to why Annanias and Sapphira might have wanted to be involved – despite the risks of being connected with the early church, what they had seems wonderful. Living in harmony, worshiping together daily, even the sick being healed.
But it’s too good to last indefinitely. And remember there’s a spiritual war taking place. So perhaps we’re unsurprised to learn of the opposition marshalling against the church. The apostles are arrested and gaoled in verses 17 – 20.
Quite humorously, the Disciples are promptly released miraculously from Prison, and in a rather Monty-Pythonesque moment they are told to go out to the Temple and start preaching again.
Cute. But in a place where they’re wanted for preaching this very message, let’s not kid ourselves – it’s a deliberate challenge to the authority of the leadership. There can be no question that both God and the disciples were 100% aware of what they were doing. They were provoking a showdown.
And sure enough, a showdown is what they got.
Next thing you know, they’re up before the Sanhedrin. When commanded grandly to stop (forgetting that these are the same guys who failed spectacularly in organizing for the disciples to be locked up), the Disciples politely but firmly say “No”, and tell the Gospel so that the Sanhedrin are left in absolutely no doubt as to what they are preaching.
It looks like things are going from bad to worse when suddenly we get a flash of real wisdom from a Sanhedrin guy called Gamaliel.
Curious sideline: There are two guys in the Bible named Gamaliel. One turns up in Acts, the other in Numbers. Cute coincidence . . .
Anyway . . .
We know precisely three things about THIS Gamaliel:
1) He was a member of the Sanhedrin (from this passage).
2) He was a mentor of Paul (from Acts 22:4)
3) He was awesome (from this passage and from the fact that Paul thought him to be worth bragging about).
What we know for sure is that he had a very common-sense approach to this vexing problem of the Disciples and their teaching. He simply said “Let them go for it. If it’s from God, it will succeed and we can’t stop it. If it’s not, it’ll fail. Just be cool and chillax, my BRO-THERS.”
Okay, maybe I’m making it a little more colloquial, but that’s the general idea.
So the Disciples are released (after being given a nice solid beating).
But we know that the Zombie Apocalypse is still coming for these guys.
So all very nice stories. What do we do differently?
Well, from Ananias and Sapphira, we learn to be 100% straight with God. We tell God what’s really happening even when we don’t want to. God is big enough to take it all. And whilst we don’t necessarily expect God to strike us dead if we’re lying to Him (this may have simply been an example), it’s still a bad thing for us to do. Whatever else, He is the person you need to be honest with.
The second thing we can learn is this – when we see something happening that we are unsure about in a Church, Gamaliel’s advice could be valuable – Let God deal with it! If He wants it to happen, he’ll make it happen, and nothing we can do would stop that happening. On the other hand, if it’s NOT something God wants to happen, there’s no point in pushing the issue. It’s not going to happen.
10 February 2011
09 February 2011
Chapter 4
A lot happens in chapter 4. It is a chapter that basically changes the game. And in the process, there’s a bit of a role reversal from the Gospels.
During the Gospels, the disciples basically looked like bumbling fools much of the time. What a difference the coming of the Spirit makes – suddenly these Keystone Cops Wanna-bes are out there preaching up a storm, and making the religious leaders look like a kindergarten Sunday School class.
It’s a lot to take in. So let’s go back to the beginning.
The narrative of chapter 4 is in 2 distinct sections. Firstly we have verses 1 – 22, which is about the fallout from the disciples’ healing activities in restoring the crippled man. Then we have 23 to 37 which goes into detail of how the Disciples lived together.
Well, haven’t we got ourselves into trouble! The Disciples thought they were just giving a man the chance to live normally – but it looks like this fact has upset the religious leaders.
The irony is there in the passage if you look carefully. As Peter correctly points out in his speech in part, “Are we being arrested becase we looked after this poor man?”
This causes a bit of strife among the leaders, who are very against the early Christians’ antics. But there’s not much they can do. They speak sternly to the disciples and tell them “not to tell anyone else” about Jesus.
Well, right contrary people that they are, the Disciples start preaching as soon as they’re outside.
We finish the chapter by looking at how the society of the Christians has changed since the Ascension, and boy, has it ever! The image that is built up here is simply incredible. They met daily, they ate together, they even lived together. And they were GROWING. Boy, were they ever!
So what can we get out of this?
One simple thing: You have to do whatever you believe God is telling you to do, regardless of what others (including your leaders) think. As we can see here, the fact that the Disciples didn’t listen to the council was a pivotal point, and it lead to you and I getting the chance to hear the Gospel.
More than that, though, there’s once again this incredible model of a church that is going places – the hospitality between them is a non-negotiable.
Can you imagine what we’d look like if we were willing to show the courage and love that this church showed?
I can’t say for sure what it might be like – but I can say that it’d be amazing.
During the Gospels, the disciples basically looked like bumbling fools much of the time. What a difference the coming of the Spirit makes – suddenly these Keystone Cops Wanna-bes are out there preaching up a storm, and making the religious leaders look like a kindergarten Sunday School class.
It’s a lot to take in. So let’s go back to the beginning.
The narrative of chapter 4 is in 2 distinct sections. Firstly we have verses 1 – 22, which is about the fallout from the disciples’ healing activities in restoring the crippled man. Then we have 23 to 37 which goes into detail of how the Disciples lived together.
Well, haven’t we got ourselves into trouble! The Disciples thought they were just giving a man the chance to live normally – but it looks like this fact has upset the religious leaders.
The irony is there in the passage if you look carefully. As Peter correctly points out in his speech in part, “Are we being arrested becase we looked after this poor man?”
This causes a bit of strife among the leaders, who are very against the early Christians’ antics. But there’s not much they can do. They speak sternly to the disciples and tell them “not to tell anyone else” about Jesus.
Well, right contrary people that they are, the Disciples start preaching as soon as they’re outside.
We finish the chapter by looking at how the society of the Christians has changed since the Ascension, and boy, has it ever! The image that is built up here is simply incredible. They met daily, they ate together, they even lived together. And they were GROWING. Boy, were they ever!
So what can we get out of this?
One simple thing: You have to do whatever you believe God is telling you to do, regardless of what others (including your leaders) think. As we can see here, the fact that the Disciples didn’t listen to the council was a pivotal point, and it lead to you and I getting the chance to hear the Gospel.
More than that, though, there’s once again this incredible model of a church that is going places – the hospitality between them is a non-negotiable.
Can you imagine what we’d look like if we were willing to show the courage and love that this church showed?
I can’t say for sure what it might be like – but I can say that it’d be amazing.
08 February 2011
Chapter 3
Today doctors can (sometimes) perform operations that seem like miracles. I have heard of people who have literally been paralysed for years who have been operated on, and have regained the use of their legs (including both sensation and motor control).
And when they do, they are excited. Very excited. So excited that the months (or even years) of rehab seem like only a brief –
Waitaminnit . . .
Yes, I said months or years in rehab. You can’t just get up having not walked for years. The muscles in the leg have to be toned up again (and they’ve often been sitting there doing nothing for years). And of course, the person needs to learn all over again which nerves control which actions. This takes some time.
By contrast, the beggar beside the gate called Beautiful not only was healed. He was MADE STRONG immediately. The legs were rebuilt and toned instantly – so instantly that he was able to go “walking, and leaping, and praising God!” as the old song says.
I wonder would Peter have been so willing to heal this man if he’d have known the consequences! But those come next chapter, so let’s not worry about that for now.
What IS worth thinking about is Peter’s second Gospel sermon in two chapters. Let’s take some time to unpack this a little.
Firstly (vs 12 – 16), Peter points out that it was Faith in Jesus Christ that has healed this man. He straight away makes it clear that it was not he himself who had the ability. More than that, Peter compares this to the Resurrection – he implies that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power at work within the beggar’s legs.
Verses 17 and 18 basically take this a step further and chides the leadership of Israel for ordering Jesus’ execution, nevertheless claiming Christ’s death to be a critically important part of Christ’s ministry.
Finally we have the call to repentance (vs 19 – 26) which has become, in two sermons, Peter’s trademark.
How would you react?
You see a person, perhaps someone who has been sitting there at that place as long as you can remember. And suddenly something new has entered your scheme. Instead of him sitting there cheerily greeting by name all the “regular” worshippers, suddenly you see him running around.
What a change!
Perhaps it might be arousing feelings of jealousy and/or envy. How come God is willing to do all this for a wet-behind the ears pre-convert, when He doesn’t do the same for His long-term secure converts?
The problem here is that we’re looking for God’s will to be understandable in the context of reciprocity – I do something for God and He does something good back.
God doesn’t work that way, friend.
God operates by Grace. It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – so there is no reconciling the idea of works into that. Either we have to work our way back to God (in which case it’s all works, because whether it’s 20% or 99% works, it’s the works that will be diffcult to manage.), or He gives salvation to us as a free gift.
The Bible is murky about some things, but this is completely un-missable. God offers salvation by grace, and we have only to accept it before it becomes our own.
It’s hard for us workaholic westerners; we just want to be part of the solution.
Tough luck.
Either you accept God’s grace or you live your own way.
Personally, I’ll take grace. Any time.
And when they do, they are excited. Very excited. So excited that the months (or even years) of rehab seem like only a brief –
Waitaminnit . . .
Yes, I said months or years in rehab. You can’t just get up having not walked for years. The muscles in the leg have to be toned up again (and they’ve often been sitting there doing nothing for years). And of course, the person needs to learn all over again which nerves control which actions. This takes some time.
By contrast, the beggar beside the gate called Beautiful not only was healed. He was MADE STRONG immediately. The legs were rebuilt and toned instantly – so instantly that he was able to go “walking, and leaping, and praising God!” as the old song says.
I wonder would Peter have been so willing to heal this man if he’d have known the consequences! But those come next chapter, so let’s not worry about that for now.
What IS worth thinking about is Peter’s second Gospel sermon in two chapters. Let’s take some time to unpack this a little.
Firstly (vs 12 – 16), Peter points out that it was Faith in Jesus Christ that has healed this man. He straight away makes it clear that it was not he himself who had the ability. More than that, Peter compares this to the Resurrection – he implies that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power at work within the beggar’s legs.
Verses 17 and 18 basically take this a step further and chides the leadership of Israel for ordering Jesus’ execution, nevertheless claiming Christ’s death to be a critically important part of Christ’s ministry.
Finally we have the call to repentance (vs 19 – 26) which has become, in two sermons, Peter’s trademark.
How would you react?
You see a person, perhaps someone who has been sitting there at that place as long as you can remember. And suddenly something new has entered your scheme. Instead of him sitting there cheerily greeting by name all the “regular” worshippers, suddenly you see him running around.
What a change!
Perhaps it might be arousing feelings of jealousy and/or envy. How come God is willing to do all this for a wet-behind the ears pre-convert, when He doesn’t do the same for His long-term secure converts?
The problem here is that we’re looking for God’s will to be understandable in the context of reciprocity – I do something for God and He does something good back.
God doesn’t work that way, friend.
God operates by Grace. It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – so there is no reconciling the idea of works into that. Either we have to work our way back to God (in which case it’s all works, because whether it’s 20% or 99% works, it’s the works that will be diffcult to manage.), or He gives salvation to us as a free gift.
The Bible is murky about some things, but this is completely un-missable. God offers salvation by grace, and we have only to accept it before it becomes our own.
It’s hard for us workaholic westerners; we just want to be part of the solution.
Tough luck.
Either you accept God’s grace or you live your own way.
Personally, I’ll take grace. Any time.
07 February 2011
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 of Acts is one that I have read over and over again. It’s a passage that has had a troubled history in the Church; sadly, it bears mute witness to our self-destructive tendency to divide over doctrine when we should be united by the Gospel.
It also includes the first full proclamation of what we’d call the Gospel today.
More than that, though, it shows us the beginning of the Church’s meteoric growth – a growth which, for us in the Western world, would seem to have slowed (or even stopped) – but make no mistake, for those from the “Two-thirds world,” as some like to call it, this growth is continuing apace. But more about that shortly.
Verses 1-15 are words which have defined a denomination of Christians – the Pentecostals. In this passage we read of the amazing transformation of the disciples when the Holy Spirit comes upon them.
The problem is that this passage is a little ambiguous – it definitely says that the disciples were given (among other gifts) the ability to speak in other languages. The term “Speaking in tongues” is often applied to this event.
By using the term “tongues”, we actually imply something which may or may not have occurred – what the anthropologists refer to as “ecstatic speech”. In this kind of an event, the person speaks in a “language” unknown to themselves or anyone else. Some suggest that this is a language spoken beyond Earth – perhaps by angels, or other spiritual beings.
Others suggest that the term should be understood to be “languages” – that the people from all over the Jewish world, who are described as being amazed to hear their own language spoken, are being told this message by the disciples. So rather than an unintelligible language, the disciples are speaking in Arabic, Greek, Parthian, Persian and dozens of other languages.
This seems more likely to me, both because of the implication that the disciples are speaking to the visitors, and also because of one intriguing little fact-oid:
In Christ, the curses of Genesis are being systematically revoked. The curse of death is gone in His resurrection. The curse of Sin is taken away in His death on the cross. And there is a promise that the curse of pain and disease will be removed. But here we have the end of another curse – the curse of Babel.
Just as once God confused languages, here He brings healing and ties the languages back together. Just as language was once a tool to divide people and force them to fill the Earth and subdue it, now God uses it as a tool to bring all things together under one head, that is Christ.
Whichever it is, I believe that it is tragic that we have spent so much time arguing the point – and missed out on the miracle that is taking place. Hello?! THOUSANDS HEARING THE GOSPEL!
For us, the concept of the Gospel, the “Good News” is familiar. Here, though, Peter is articulating this amazing idea for the first time. The resurrection is still a triumphant, recent memory rather than an ancient assertion; and for the first time he (along with many others) is getting a handle on what it means, with a little help from the Holy Spirit.
It’s worth noting that when Peter preaches this message to people around, they are very receptive to the message.
I think many of us wish that we could stand on street corners preaching and get the result that Peter is getting here. But there’s more to it than just a great message (though that is itself important).
Verses 41 – 47 give us a little flavour of what it was like to be among the Christians in those heady days (before we were even called Christians!). It’s amazing. They lived together, owned everything in common, ate together, and spent most of their time praying and praising.
It was wonderful and amazing – but it was also temporary, as such things often are. Not because they lost faith, or because God wanted this to stop as such, but because in reality there is a Spiritual battle taking place, and this new movement of God was not to be unopposed much longer.
What can this passage give us, aside from a sore longing for such a thing to happen for us (and incidentally, if you share that longing, then GOOD – it may spur you and me into doing something for God!), can this passage give us?
Verses 1 – 12 give us a lot. They tell us that God wants to reach people from every nation. They show us the lengths that God is willing to go to – to grant a bunch of fishermen access to many (if not all) human languages, or perhaps to grant everyone else the ability to interpret languages.
Verses 14 – 40 can give us an excellent potted summary of the Gospel message, and if you were to simply take what Peter says and translate it into the local lingo, wherever you are, you could do a lot worse.
But verses 41 – 47, bittersweet as they may be, offer us a tantalizing glimpse of what we could be if we really allowed God to have His way.
Imagine – Christians of all stripe finally stopping the quarrels and getting on with the job of saving the world!
Imagine – the Gospel going out (I mean, really going out – not half hearted, with the strongest of passion and the clearest, least muddled message) to anyone who’ll stand still long enough to listen!
Imagine – thousands being added daily to our numbers.
Things aren’t like they were back then. But if we take up our part (i.e. pray and share the Gospel with others), God WILL do His part – and the best days of the Church are still yet to come!
It also includes the first full proclamation of what we’d call the Gospel today.
More than that, though, it shows us the beginning of the Church’s meteoric growth – a growth which, for us in the Western world, would seem to have slowed (or even stopped) – but make no mistake, for those from the “Two-thirds world,” as some like to call it, this growth is continuing apace. But more about that shortly.
Verses 1-15 are words which have defined a denomination of Christians – the Pentecostals. In this passage we read of the amazing transformation of the disciples when the Holy Spirit comes upon them.
The problem is that this passage is a little ambiguous – it definitely says that the disciples were given (among other gifts) the ability to speak in other languages. The term “Speaking in tongues” is often applied to this event.
By using the term “tongues”, we actually imply something which may or may not have occurred – what the anthropologists refer to as “ecstatic speech”. In this kind of an event, the person speaks in a “language” unknown to themselves or anyone else. Some suggest that this is a language spoken beyond Earth – perhaps by angels, or other spiritual beings.
Others suggest that the term should be understood to be “languages” – that the people from all over the Jewish world, who are described as being amazed to hear their own language spoken, are being told this message by the disciples. So rather than an unintelligible language, the disciples are speaking in Arabic, Greek, Parthian, Persian and dozens of other languages.
This seems more likely to me, both because of the implication that the disciples are speaking to the visitors, and also because of one intriguing little fact-oid:
In Christ, the curses of Genesis are being systematically revoked. The curse of death is gone in His resurrection. The curse of Sin is taken away in His death on the cross. And there is a promise that the curse of pain and disease will be removed. But here we have the end of another curse – the curse of Babel.
Just as once God confused languages, here He brings healing and ties the languages back together. Just as language was once a tool to divide people and force them to fill the Earth and subdue it, now God uses it as a tool to bring all things together under one head, that is Christ.
Whichever it is, I believe that it is tragic that we have spent so much time arguing the point – and missed out on the miracle that is taking place. Hello?! THOUSANDS HEARING THE GOSPEL!
For us, the concept of the Gospel, the “Good News” is familiar. Here, though, Peter is articulating this amazing idea for the first time. The resurrection is still a triumphant, recent memory rather than an ancient assertion; and for the first time he (along with many others) is getting a handle on what it means, with a little help from the Holy Spirit.
It’s worth noting that when Peter preaches this message to people around, they are very receptive to the message.
I think many of us wish that we could stand on street corners preaching and get the result that Peter is getting here. But there’s more to it than just a great message (though that is itself important).
Verses 41 – 47 give us a little flavour of what it was like to be among the Christians in those heady days (before we were even called Christians!). It’s amazing. They lived together, owned everything in common, ate together, and spent most of their time praying and praising.
It was wonderful and amazing – but it was also temporary, as such things often are. Not because they lost faith, or because God wanted this to stop as such, but because in reality there is a Spiritual battle taking place, and this new movement of God was not to be unopposed much longer.
What can this passage give us, aside from a sore longing for such a thing to happen for us (and incidentally, if you share that longing, then GOOD – it may spur you and me into doing something for God!), can this passage give us?
Verses 1 – 12 give us a lot. They tell us that God wants to reach people from every nation. They show us the lengths that God is willing to go to – to grant a bunch of fishermen access to many (if not all) human languages, or perhaps to grant everyone else the ability to interpret languages.
Verses 14 – 40 can give us an excellent potted summary of the Gospel message, and if you were to simply take what Peter says and translate it into the local lingo, wherever you are, you could do a lot worse.
But verses 41 – 47, bittersweet as they may be, offer us a tantalizing glimpse of what we could be if we really allowed God to have His way.
Imagine – Christians of all stripe finally stopping the quarrels and getting on with the job of saving the world!
Imagine – the Gospel going out (I mean, really going out – not half hearted, with the strongest of passion and the clearest, least muddled message) to anyone who’ll stand still long enough to listen!
Imagine – thousands being added daily to our numbers.
Things aren’t like they were back then. But if we take up our part (i.e. pray and share the Gospel with others), God WILL do His part – and the best days of the Church are still yet to come!
06 February 2011
Chapter 1
Who is Theophilus?
This is often the first question people ask when they read the book of Acts.
Chapter 1 verse 1 tells us that this book is addressed to this person, so it’s a little embarrassing as a Christian leader discipling recent converts to admit that we really don’t know.
The thing is, it’s quite a valid name. So on the one hand, it simply could be a member of the church named “Theophilus”.
On the other hand, it could be a code-name for someone. It literally means “One who loves God”, so it would be quite an appropriate codename for a Christian who wishes not to be identified (and fair enough, too, considering what used to happen to early Christians).
On the OTHER other hand, it could be YOU.
What do I mean? Well, you’re someone who loves God – you must be, if you have dragged yourself along this far reading my commentaries! – and you’re reading the book. That could mean that you’re the person it is addressed to! In other words, it could simply mean “Friend who loves God” – a title for any person who reads the book.
Anyway, we don’t know. We DO know that the Gospel of Luke is addressed to the same person, so that links this book with Luke’s Gospel. In fact, it is this book which actually spills the identity of the Gospel writer in the first place. But I’m getting ahead of myself here – that happens in a later chapter!
A breakdown of the first chapter is as follows:
* Vs 1 – 11: Wrapping up the story of Jesus – the ascension.
* Vs 12 – 14: A list of who was present, as well as the disciples’ agreement to include Mary, Jesus’ mother, his brothers and a couple of other women in their group.
* Vs 15 – 26: Replacing Judas.
It is the replacement of Judas that arouses a lot of comment from readers of this book. Firstly, it seems to fly in the face of the assertion in the Gospel of Matthew that Judas went away and hanged himself – in Acts, Luke spills more of the gory details (if you’ll pardon some grossly inappropriate puns there!) and tells us that he plunged headalong and burst . .
In the past this is one of those passages atheists like to look at and scream “Owned! Contradiction there!”
This never impressed me a lot. As far as I can see, the two are far from mutually exclusive, and if he hanged himself in a bad place, it could have easily been both. Anyway, that’s not a big deal.
What MAY be a big deal is this method of choosing the replacement – by drawing lots. This causes a lot of consternation among Christians. Conservative Southern Baptists, who are REALLY not into gambling, dislike it just on principle; Anglicans, many of whom have no such hang-ups, still dislike the idea of choosing a leader of the church at random. They (fairly!) ask if this is any way to select the best person for the job?
Of course, there’s more to this than meets the eye at first. It’s actually not a bad way of picking a leader when you carefully read what they did.
Note that the disciples did NOT just say “Okay, we’ll draw lots, and the first person the dice favours is the leader.” No the first thing they did can be found in verses 21 and 22, and it’s obvious once it gets pointed out to you (though if this is the first time you’ve picked this up, it may be a comfort for you to learn that I didn’t pick it up either until I was in my mid-20s).
Firstly, the Disciples select all the people among them who QUALIFY to be a disciple! This process yields two candidates, Justus and Matthias. Do you get this? They’re already screening out anyone undesirable by simply saying that the preferred candidate had to have been among Jesus’ disciples from the beginning of his ministry to his ascension.
The trick is to understand that the lot was cast ONLY after the disciples had already made a sound choice of the candidates. Once we were at this point, presumably from a human perspective, the two candidates are more or less equal. God is basically being asked to break the tie, which he does.
An episode of Yes Prime Minister refers to this passage when Jim is being asked to recommend the appointment of a bishop to the Sovereign. He asks the Church of England representatives how it was done in Bible times; they respond “They let the Holy Ghost decide by drawing lots.”
Jim, puzzled, asks why don’t they let the Holy Ghost decide this one?
The answer given is “They’re not certain the Holy Ghost has a good idea of what is required of a modern Bishop!”
Yes, it’s a funny call, but there is a deadly serious side to all this. We often don’t trust God anywhere near enough!
It’s strange how, when given two options that from our point of view appear equal, we are reluctant to let God make a decision. Yet here the Disciples are allowing God to decide the replacement leader in this way! Let’s face it, people – most of us would find that really hard to do.
Yet it seems to work. Matthias, if not reaching the heights of fame the other disciples did, at least he doesn’t screw up in any deep level.
Tonight’s reminder is fairly simple – the church belongs to God. YES, we are required to make the wisest decisions we can. Yes indeed, that’s important – and as we have seen, the Disciples did that too. But it’s equally important to recognize that if it is His church, He can be trusted to do right by it.
This is often the first question people ask when they read the book of Acts.
Chapter 1 verse 1 tells us that this book is addressed to this person, so it’s a little embarrassing as a Christian leader discipling recent converts to admit that we really don’t know.
The thing is, it’s quite a valid name. So on the one hand, it simply could be a member of the church named “Theophilus”.
On the other hand, it could be a code-name for someone. It literally means “One who loves God”, so it would be quite an appropriate codename for a Christian who wishes not to be identified (and fair enough, too, considering what used to happen to early Christians).
On the OTHER other hand, it could be YOU.
What do I mean? Well, you’re someone who loves God – you must be, if you have dragged yourself along this far reading my commentaries! – and you’re reading the book. That could mean that you’re the person it is addressed to! In other words, it could simply mean “Friend who loves God” – a title for any person who reads the book.
Anyway, we don’t know. We DO know that the Gospel of Luke is addressed to the same person, so that links this book with Luke’s Gospel. In fact, it is this book which actually spills the identity of the Gospel writer in the first place. But I’m getting ahead of myself here – that happens in a later chapter!
A breakdown of the first chapter is as follows:
* Vs 1 – 11: Wrapping up the story of Jesus – the ascension.
* Vs 12 – 14: A list of who was present, as well as the disciples’ agreement to include Mary, Jesus’ mother, his brothers and a couple of other women in their group.
* Vs 15 – 26: Replacing Judas.
It is the replacement of Judas that arouses a lot of comment from readers of this book. Firstly, it seems to fly in the face of the assertion in the Gospel of Matthew that Judas went away and hanged himself – in Acts, Luke spills more of the gory details (if you’ll pardon some grossly inappropriate puns there!) and tells us that he plunged headalong and burst . .
In the past this is one of those passages atheists like to look at and scream “Owned! Contradiction there!”
This never impressed me a lot. As far as I can see, the two are far from mutually exclusive, and if he hanged himself in a bad place, it could have easily been both. Anyway, that’s not a big deal.
What MAY be a big deal is this method of choosing the replacement – by drawing lots. This causes a lot of consternation among Christians. Conservative Southern Baptists, who are REALLY not into gambling, dislike it just on principle; Anglicans, many of whom have no such hang-ups, still dislike the idea of choosing a leader of the church at random. They (fairly!) ask if this is any way to select the best person for the job?
Of course, there’s more to this than meets the eye at first. It’s actually not a bad way of picking a leader when you carefully read what they did.
Note that the disciples did NOT just say “Okay, we’ll draw lots, and the first person the dice favours is the leader.” No the first thing they did can be found in verses 21 and 22, and it’s obvious once it gets pointed out to you (though if this is the first time you’ve picked this up, it may be a comfort for you to learn that I didn’t pick it up either until I was in my mid-20s).
Firstly, the Disciples select all the people among them who QUALIFY to be a disciple! This process yields two candidates, Justus and Matthias. Do you get this? They’re already screening out anyone undesirable by simply saying that the preferred candidate had to have been among Jesus’ disciples from the beginning of his ministry to his ascension.
The trick is to understand that the lot was cast ONLY after the disciples had already made a sound choice of the candidates. Once we were at this point, presumably from a human perspective, the two candidates are more or less equal. God is basically being asked to break the tie, which he does.
An episode of Yes Prime Minister refers to this passage when Jim is being asked to recommend the appointment of a bishop to the Sovereign. He asks the Church of England representatives how it was done in Bible times; they respond “They let the Holy Ghost decide by drawing lots.”
Jim, puzzled, asks why don’t they let the Holy Ghost decide this one?
The answer given is “They’re not certain the Holy Ghost has a good idea of what is required of a modern Bishop!”
Yes, it’s a funny call, but there is a deadly serious side to all this. We often don’t trust God anywhere near enough!
It’s strange how, when given two options that from our point of view appear equal, we are reluctant to let God make a decision. Yet here the Disciples are allowing God to decide the replacement leader in this way! Let’s face it, people – most of us would find that really hard to do.
Yet it seems to work. Matthias, if not reaching the heights of fame the other disciples did, at least he doesn’t screw up in any deep level.
Tonight’s reminder is fairly simple – the church belongs to God. YES, we are required to make the wisest decisions we can. Yes indeed, that’s important – and as we have seen, the Disciples did that too. But it’s equally important to recognize that if it is His church, He can be trusted to do right by it.
Introduction to Acts
I breathed a sigh of relief. The results of the poll were finalized now, and my readers weren’t sadistic enough to set me on to Revelation.
(Most of them, anyway. There were two of you . . )
After doing my chapter-by-chapter commentary of Numbers, Acts seemed at first to be a relief.
It’s only now that I am reading the first chapter that it’s occurred to me that this undertaking is going to be just as difficult as going through Numbers – but for an entirely different reason.
You see, Numbers is fairly obscure. Yes, most of us know a couple of the stories there, but I’ll bet even the average Christian knows nothing about Zelophehad, or why his daughters are significant! And if you know the story of Balaam and the Donkey, odds are that you won’t know what he was actually on his way to do when God decided to use his donkey to make him look like a donkey.
Acts, by contrast, is well known to Christians. It can be an intimidating book, because it shows a church with a fire that deep down we suspect that we lack, getting results that we know we’re not getting. It can be hard going because of that very fact. But make no mistake, most of us have read it and know its stories well.
I’m going to have to come up with something meaningful from that!
Well, no time like the present. I invite you to join me and Dr Luke as we track the progress of the Church from its founding.
(Most of them, anyway. There were two of you . . )
After doing my chapter-by-chapter commentary of Numbers, Acts seemed at first to be a relief.
It’s only now that I am reading the first chapter that it’s occurred to me that this undertaking is going to be just as difficult as going through Numbers – but for an entirely different reason.
You see, Numbers is fairly obscure. Yes, most of us know a couple of the stories there, but I’ll bet even the average Christian knows nothing about Zelophehad, or why his daughters are significant! And if you know the story of Balaam and the Donkey, odds are that you won’t know what he was actually on his way to do when God decided to use his donkey to make him look like a donkey.
Acts, by contrast, is well known to Christians. It can be an intimidating book, because it shows a church with a fire that deep down we suspect that we lack, getting results that we know we’re not getting. It can be hard going because of that very fact. But make no mistake, most of us have read it and know its stories well.
I’m going to have to come up with something meaningful from that!
Well, no time like the present. I invite you to join me and Dr Luke as we track the progress of the Church from its founding.
05 February 2011
Chapter 36
So today finishes my survey of Numbers.
Fittingly, the book ends with an incident that will be quite difficult to find a real-life application for. Somehow I should have expected that.
We meet up with Zelophehad’s daughters again (see chapter 27). And again the question that is being asked is about their inheritance rights.
The question that is being asked seems downright ridiculous to people from our society – so what if they marry out of their tribe? It’s not their problem if any land they inherit leaves their tribe. Why is this such an issue?
It’s doubly significant to us that the upshot of this is to force them to marry cousins (although the word “cousin” doesn’t necessarily imply the relational closeness to them that it would in our world – it could be second, third, fourth or fifth cousins). To us this just seems gross, and we wonder why this was necessary!
Yet Moses is being commanded by God (v5) when he gives the response, which is that they must stay within their tribes. So logically God must have some reason for this.
I’ll admit that this passage mystified me enough that I decided to look up some other commentaries and see what their writers had to say. Most of them seem to plonk the entire chapter right into the “too hard” basket, and this even includes one or two shrill American ultra-conservative Pentecostal all-King-James commentaries. Darby (my first port of call, as a good Brethren boy) has little to say, and even Wesley simply explains one or two of the difficult words.
The only really useful one of the old classic commentaries, Matthew Henry, says that
“it is probable that this was not a bare surmise, or supposition, but that they knew, at this time, great court was made to them by some young gentlemen of other tribes, because they were heiresses, that they might get footing in this tribe, and so enlarge their own inheritance[1].”
This isn’t scripture, of course, but some shrewd thinking there. Probably this question wasn’t asked just for curiosity – they needed a ruling! To translate Henry’s comment from Early Modern English to today’s talk, it’s quite likely that some young man had noticed that the daughters were quite wealthy.
Of course, NOBODY marries for money today. We’re beyond that now . . . (Yeah, right)
What this law does is plugs a hole in the law that might have allowed someone to use marriage with one of these girls as a tool for enriching himself or his family.
The whole passage also brings out the importance of family to Jews of the day. To us, marriage is really a personal affair, and although your close friends and family can offer their opinion, you really do make your own decisions. But to the Israelites (and to most societies at this time), marriages were negotiated between two families. So it really was important that the interests of the family were considered, even though this seems odd to us today.
Once again, we have the point that God ensured that in a totally male-dominated world, the interests of a woman were still important. This entire situation occurred because of a decision that these women deserved as much chance to look after themselves as any male enjoyed.
--
So now we have finished Numbers. Where does it leave us?
It leaves us having walked [a lot of!] miles in the shoes of people who really had to rely on God for everything. They weren’t heroes, for the most part. They weren’t villains either, though they had their moments. There is certainly a lot they could have done better; when we see those things, we can learn the lesson and try to do better in our own lives. On the other hand, they could do worse, and in those circumstances we’d do well to follow the Israelites’ examples (especially those of characters like Joshua and Caleb).
I was going to finish off some other way, but by chance I happened to listen to a little Sermon/Song combo by Keith Green – you can find it on Youtube here. Something that Keith says in this little moment is interesting. The ultimate insult to God is, after all He has done for the people of Israel, for them to say “It was better back in Egypt”.
There are many different messages we could find from the book of Numbers, but perhaps a good one to take away as the big one is this – When God makes you free, you WILL face problems. Lots of problems. Freedom is like that; sometimes you wind up wishing that you were still in slavery. But persevere. Freedom beats slavery any day of the week.
Even when you end up having second thoughts and wanting to go back to Egypt, press on. Even if you have to wander in the desert for another 40 years, press on. Even if you yourself won’t make it to the Promised Land but have to bequeath the dream to your children, or your children’s children, PRESS ON.
In Christ, God has made you free. So don’t ever again allow yourself to be enslaved. Keep on walking through the Wilderness, and one day sooner or later you’ll be at the door to the Promised Land.
[1] Matthew Henry (1708)
Fittingly, the book ends with an incident that will be quite difficult to find a real-life application for. Somehow I should have expected that.
We meet up with Zelophehad’s daughters again (see chapter 27). And again the question that is being asked is about their inheritance rights.
The question that is being asked seems downright ridiculous to people from our society – so what if they marry out of their tribe? It’s not their problem if any land they inherit leaves their tribe. Why is this such an issue?
It’s doubly significant to us that the upshot of this is to force them to marry cousins (although the word “cousin” doesn’t necessarily imply the relational closeness to them that it would in our world – it could be second, third, fourth or fifth cousins). To us this just seems gross, and we wonder why this was necessary!
Yet Moses is being commanded by God (v5) when he gives the response, which is that they must stay within their tribes. So logically God must have some reason for this.
I’ll admit that this passage mystified me enough that I decided to look up some other commentaries and see what their writers had to say. Most of them seem to plonk the entire chapter right into the “too hard” basket, and this even includes one or two shrill American ultra-conservative Pentecostal all-King-James commentaries. Darby (my first port of call, as a good Brethren boy) has little to say, and even Wesley simply explains one or two of the difficult words.
The only really useful one of the old classic commentaries, Matthew Henry, says that
“it is probable that this was not a bare surmise, or supposition, but that they knew, at this time, great court was made to them by some young gentlemen of other tribes, because they were heiresses, that they might get footing in this tribe, and so enlarge their own inheritance[1].”
This isn’t scripture, of course, but some shrewd thinking there. Probably this question wasn’t asked just for curiosity – they needed a ruling! To translate Henry’s comment from Early Modern English to today’s talk, it’s quite likely that some young man had noticed that the daughters were quite wealthy.
Of course, NOBODY marries for money today. We’re beyond that now . . . (Yeah, right)
What this law does is plugs a hole in the law that might have allowed someone to use marriage with one of these girls as a tool for enriching himself or his family.
The whole passage also brings out the importance of family to Jews of the day. To us, marriage is really a personal affair, and although your close friends and family can offer their opinion, you really do make your own decisions. But to the Israelites (and to most societies at this time), marriages were negotiated between two families. So it really was important that the interests of the family were considered, even though this seems odd to us today.
Once again, we have the point that God ensured that in a totally male-dominated world, the interests of a woman were still important. This entire situation occurred because of a decision that these women deserved as much chance to look after themselves as any male enjoyed.
--
So now we have finished Numbers. Where does it leave us?
It leaves us having walked [a lot of!] miles in the shoes of people who really had to rely on God for everything. They weren’t heroes, for the most part. They weren’t villains either, though they had their moments. There is certainly a lot they could have done better; when we see those things, we can learn the lesson and try to do better in our own lives. On the other hand, they could do worse, and in those circumstances we’d do well to follow the Israelites’ examples (especially those of characters like Joshua and Caleb).
I was going to finish off some other way, but by chance I happened to listen to a little Sermon/Song combo by Keith Green – you can find it on Youtube here. Something that Keith says in this little moment is interesting. The ultimate insult to God is, after all He has done for the people of Israel, for them to say “It was better back in Egypt”.
There are many different messages we could find from the book of Numbers, but perhaps a good one to take away as the big one is this – When God makes you free, you WILL face problems. Lots of problems. Freedom is like that; sometimes you wind up wishing that you were still in slavery. But persevere. Freedom beats slavery any day of the week.
Even when you end up having second thoughts and wanting to go back to Egypt, press on. Even if you have to wander in the desert for another 40 years, press on. Even if you yourself won’t make it to the Promised Land but have to bequeath the dream to your children, or your children’s children, PRESS ON.
In Christ, God has made you free. So don’t ever again allow yourself to be enslaved. Keep on walking through the Wilderness, and one day sooner or later you’ll be at the door to the Promised Land.
[1] Matthew Henry (1708)
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